Four years after it was originally due to open the Elizabeth Line—originally known as the Crossrail project—has finally opened for business and hundreds of passengers boarded the first trains.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and his predecessor, the now-Prime Minister Boris Johnson, welcomed the opening of the line, which they both claimed would generate £42 billion ($52 billion) towards the economy.
The 73-mile-long Elizabeth Line will eventually link the university town of Reading, west of London, with Abbey Wood in southeast London and Shenfield in Essex, but initially trains are only running between Paddington and Abbey Wood.
The first eastbound train from Paddington through central London left at 6:33 a.m. and among those on board was teenage train buff Colin Kelso, from Glasgow, who wore a hoodie with the words Purple Train on the front, a homage to the new line’s mauve livery….